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Lotus pushing hard with new updates for Malaysia

The Lotus will feature a new front wing and an experimental exhaust © Sutton Images

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Lotus will bring experimental bodywork to the second race of the season in Malaysia, but has vowed not to get distracted with updates as it aims for its second win of the year.

Lotus took a convincing victory at the first race in Australia, with Kimi Raikkonen making use of his car's advantage on Pirelli's new tyres. However, technical director James Allison said the team already has some upgrades to try out at the second race in Malaysia as it aims to improve the car's pace.

"We have an experimental exhaust and bodywork combination, and a new front wing to try out," he said. "However, with tyre performance likely to play a critical part in the weekend, we will need to be careful not to get overly distracted trying out new parts at the expense of finding a good setup to make sure that we are using the tyres well. We will be aiming to keep the momentum up and hoping that we can repeat Kimi's fantastic performance again this weekend with both cars."

Allison said all the teams would have a different challenge with the tyres in the heat of Malaysia.

"Albert Park is not an average F1 track. It has a lot of similar, medium speed corners, but not very much from the high and low speed ends of the spectrum. Also, the race was conducted in cooler than expected conditions. When it is cool, tyre wear is dominated by graining. We were able to make the car work in these conditions, but it remains to be seen whether we can do the same when the wear mechanism shifts to traditional high temperature degradation.

"One thing we can be sure of is that Malaysia will deliver high temperature degradation in spades. We haven't seen anything other than good long run pace from the E21 so far, but we will have a much clearer idea of where things stand after second Free Practice on Friday. We feel optimistic but it's still very early and anything can happen."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.